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Thursday, September 15, 2011

Anyone out there interested in having a crazy stalker? How about if that
stalker had personal information such as your home address, email and
phone number? Nope, doesn't sound like much fun to us, either. That's exactly what happened to Amber Duick,
a woman from California who claims she was duped into signing up for a
five-day stalking, courtesy of the marketing team at Saatchi &
Saatchi, on behalf of Toyota.

One of Amber's so-called friends decided it would be funny if she had an
online stalker, so he forwarded her an email for a "personality test"
that was actually an application to be punked. It was all part of a
campaign in 2009 for the Toyota Matrix called "Your Other You."

Duick's made-up "stalker" was named Sebastian Bowler, a 25-year-old
soccer fanatic from England with a drinking problem and a pit bull named
Trigger. According to a series of emails sent to Duick, Bowler was on
his way to her home and planned to sleep on her couch for a few nights
after running into problems with the law. Eventually, Duick was informed
via an emailed video link that she was being pranked.

Haha, very funny.

Duick sued. Toyota moved to dismiss the case, claiming that Duick had,
perhaps unintentionally, agreed to be a part of the campaign by filling
out the aforementioned fake personality test. Part of her consent was
agreeing that any disputes would be handled outside of court in
arbitration, but, a California Appellate judge recently disagreed,
ruling that the agreement was invalid because Duick was enticed to sign
it under false pretenses. That means the case has cleared its last
hurdle before going to trial where Duick is seeking $10 million in
damages. Not so funny now, eh?